The New Jersey Nets are considering Detroit GM Joe Dumars and New Orleans GM Jeff Bower to replace Rod Thorn.

Dumars won the 2002-03 NBA Executive of the Year Award. Under his watch, the Pistons went to six consecutive Eastern Conference finals, two NBA Finals and won the 2004 championship.

Bower helped transform the Hornets from an 18-win team in 2004-05, the year before he took over, to a franchise-best 56 victories three years later.

Notice the dates of Dumars and Bower’s successes. Detroit and New Orleans have struggled in recent years with these two guys at the helm.

Dumars did build a championship roster, but he is also the mastermind who passed on Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Carmelo Anthony to draft Darko Milicic and traded away Chauncey Billups in order to rebuild by overpaying Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva just last summer. The Pistons have gotten increasingly worse on his watch.

Bower did pluck budding prospects Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton out of the 2009 Draft, but he also made two miserable trades (for Peja Stojakovic and Emeka Okafor) that have totally handicapped the franchise financially, leading to rumors that Chris Paul would welcome a trade to ‘contender.’

Is this the best that the Nets can do? There is one name that jumps out as a great candidate for this job, and he’s looking for work: former Portland GM Kevin Pritchard.

A few random thoughts…

- I was confused about DE’s prediction that the Grizzlies will take Harden, when they already have Mayo at off guard, so I emailed the site about it. Jonathan Givony had this to say: “I think they move Mayo to the 1 (his natural position) and use Harden at the 2.” Mayo’s shot-to-assist ratio and A/TO ratio don’t support this theory, but one could argue that Mayo had to launch all of those shots last season to keep the Grizzlies competitive. He’s just 6’4″ and certainly has the athleticism to play the point, but does he have the mindset?

- What are the Warriors going to do at #7? Supposedly, they made a promise to Monta Ellis that they wouldn’t draft a point guard, so that leaves DeRozan and Hill potentially at #7. This is a point guard heavy draft, especially in the top 10 or 12, so they’re sort of painting themselves into a corner. The top PGs won’t work out for them, so if Hill is on the board, I think they take him.

- Any chance of the Bucks landing Hill at #10 seem slim at best given the rumored interest from the Warriors and the Knicks. If they stand pat, they’re looking at a point guard (with Ramon Sessions already on the roster) or maybe DeJuan Blair and his questionable knees. If I’m John Hammond, I’m dangling Charlie Villanueva and the #10 pick out there in an attempt to move up and grab Hill. I’ve said time and time again that Sessions has all the tools to be a top 10 point guard in the NBA.

- There are only three picks that all four mocks agree on: Griffin at #1, DeRozan at #9 and Henderson at #12. It will be interesting to see if all three picks come in.

- Nobody has any idea what the Suns are going to do at #14. Is Steve Kerr holding his cards closely to his chest or is he as confused as the rest of us? (Regular readers know that I am no fan of Kerr’s management thus far, as evidenced by this and this.)

- Kevin Pritchard might be looking for more of an impact at point guard, but I think Darren Collison would be a good fit with the Blazers. He can run an offense, plays great defense and can hit the open shot. He’s like Steve Blake, but he isn’t quite as good of a shooter. (He’s a much better defender, however.)

- I love Sam Young in the bottom third of the round. He has the potential to be a Josh Howard-type if he puts the work in. The Kings could really use him at #23.

No one can fault the job that Portland GM Kevin Pritchard has done so far. In 2005, when he was the Blazers’ interim coach, he reportedly advised then-GM John Nash and Steve Patterson to draft Chris Paul at #3, but the duo instead decided to trade the pick and ended up with Martell Webster at #6. He was promoted to assistant GM in 2006, and was involved in a series of deals that resulted in the acquisition of the draft rights of Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge. In 2007, he was promoted to general manager. That summer, in addition to drafting Greg Oden, he turned Zach Randolph into a trade exception that he used to steal Rudy Fernandez from the Phoenix Suns.

Other than an ill-advised threat to sue anyone that tried to sign Darius Miles, it’s tough to second-guess anything that Pritchard has done in Portland.

But what if he had drafted Kevin Durant instead of Greg Oden? How much better off would the franchise be with Durant on the roster?

Look, I like Greg Oden and I’m really rooting for him to bounce back from his knee problems and go on to have the NBA career he was supposed to have. Two years ago, I advocated drafting him #1 over Durant, though it was a tough call. I was really impressed with how Oden handled his wrist injury early on at Ohio State and his dominating performance against Florida in the NCAA tournament. No one could have predicted the kind of injury trouble that the big man would have, and if he had stayed healthy, he’d probably be entrenched as a top 10 center. (By the way, as fond as Bill Simmons is of saying that he thought Durant was the pick back then, he doesn’t really pick a side in his June ’07 column.) I’m sure that after the Fernandez acquisition, Pritchard had dreams of a Roy-Fernandez-Aldridge-Oden lineup dancing in his head, so drafting a small forward wasn’t a priority. But almost three years later, it’s clear that Durant’s career is on a much higher trajectory than Oden’s.

Durant is averaging 26.0 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game. He is shooting almost 49% from the field and almost 44% from long range. (The fact that he shot just 43% from the field and 29% from three-point range in his rookie season shows just how far he has come in one year.) He has the #17 PER in the league, which is the seventh-best amongst wings. And he’s been pretty durable, missing just nine games in two seasons. Not bad for a 20-year-old who’s weighing in at just 215 pounds and hasn’t yet reached his ideal weight.

Imagine building around a core of Durant, Roy and Aldridge. And with the Blazers cap flexibility, they’d have a great shot at landing Chris Bosh or Amare Stoudemire next summer. Throw in a pass-first point guard (Steve Blake?) and you’d have one of the most dangerous lineups in the West. The Blazers just blew out the Lakers the other night – imagine if they added Durant and Bosh to that lineup! Moreover, Portland owner Paul Allen (the 12th-richest American with a net worth of $16 billion) would have the dough to keep that group together as long as he wanted.

When I plug a straight Durant-for-Oden swap into the ESPN Trade Machine, it shows that the Blazers’ win total would increase by two while the Thunder’s wins would drop by five. Assuming those are for-the-rest-of-the-season numbers, that would equate to about nine additional Blazer wins over the course of the entire season. They’re projected to win 52 games at their current pace, but with Durant in the lineup that number would rise to 61. That would make the Blazers the fourth-best team in the NBA (behind the Cavs, Celtics and Lakers) and the second-best team in the West. And that’s without Bosh or Stoudemire.

What’s even more amazing is the lineup Pritchard would have if he had had his way back in 2005 and the Blazers had drafted Paul. Can you imagine a lineup of CP3, Roy, Durant and Aldridge, with the potential to add a free agent big in 2010? Granted, had Portland drafted Paul, they probably wouldn’t have been in a position to draft those other guys in subsequent years, but it’s still fun to think about.

Pritchard has justifiably built a reputation for being a genius, but if Oden can’t get his career back on track and the Blazers can’t capitalize on all that potential, then he might be remembered for the one mistake he made in his first few years on the job.